MySQL is a relational database management system that you probably hear tons upon tons about but if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t sure how to even begin picking at it. After all, there aren’t even any vowels in that word – that’s overwhelming enough! Well, because I’m only barely a step ahead of you (or in some cases, probably a step behind), I can promise you that it’s really not as scary as it looks. With the foundation laid out by my previous posts, we should be able to tame this beast pretty smoothly. Today we will introduce ourselves and familiarize ourselves with some MySQL controls – not necessarily database controls like we discussed in my initial post, but we’re just going to see if we can get our database to give us some information using a few key phrases.

Just note that this WILL be a bit of a longer post – so feel free to read it in simple segments and take breaks in-between. We’ve got a lot to cover! Read more »